Discourse Expalined in " Literacy, Discourse, and Lingustics

According to Gee author of "Literacy, Discourse, and Lingustics", Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identiites as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes." I loved the examples Gee gave about being able to use the right language and the right time for your "Discourses" to make sense. Discourse are the combo of using the right language and right gestures in a certain setting where thats what is acceptable and usual. We have different discourses all throughout our day. I have a different discourse at home watching tv with my roommates than I do when I am watching a movie in class. Discourse are learned over time, by individuals that have the specific discourse mastered.

Living Illiterate

After reading the article "The Human Cost of an Illiterate Socitey" by Jonathan Kozol I was reminded of a certain time watching the superbowl. Being a soccer player, I've never really paid attention to the SuperBowl unless the good ole' packers are playing in the bowl. So after watching the SuperBowl a couple years ago, I was drifting off (a common thing during football games) and thought to myself, "Do more people watch the superbowl than vote?" The answer is yes. After researching a little, in 2004 an estimated 144.4 million people watched the 2004 Super Bowl in the United States, while only 122,293,332 people showed up to the polls for the Presidential election ten months later. So it is apparent that voting turnout is a problem in the United States. Another problem is the amount of illerate individuals that don't vote, or are forced to vote based of word of mouth. They are unable to have proper information in written form. The article predicts that if 1/3 of the amount of illiterates were able to read and do math well enough, many elections would have flipped winners.

"Illiterates live, in more than literal ways, an uninsured existence." I was saddened remembering that being illiterate inables you to read instructions on a bottle of prescription medicine, or warnings on different dangerous products. The example at the beginning of the article about draino, shows how dangerous and fatal that product could be to someone unable to read the label before using it.

Reading Literature

"what a school may define as reading may not take account of what students read in various contets other than the classroom." For example, when I was younger I could read novel after novel about my favorite soccer players, and not caring a "darn" about what we were reading in class. If my grades suffered in my school reading classes, teachers would rightfully assume that I couldn't read well. The question of what exactly is a literature or a book is brought up in Swed's article. Handbills, signs, graffiti, sheet music, junk mail, and even sheet music are left out of the category of literature.